1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to cooking devices and, more particularly, to an outdoor barbecue apparatus. Specifically, the present invention relates to an improved barbecue apparatus having a unique grill lift mechanism.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Outdoor cooking or barbecue devices have been in existence for many years and have taken a wide variety of forms and shapes from fragile portable devices to permanent outdoor barbecue installations. Most of these devices have certain common fundamentals which include a fire pit or container which is adapted to contain wood, charcoal, gas burners or the like as fuel for a heat source. Located above the fire pit is a grill or grate which holds the food to be cooked above the flame. Examples of such general types of barbecue devices include U.S. Pat. No. 3,105,483, No. 3,398,733 and No. 3,943,837. All of these references disclose general barbecue grill devices of the type described above.
One major problem associated with barbecue devices of the past is that the position of the grill relative to the fire pit is generally not adjustable. Thus, the only manner for adjusting the amount of heat to which the cooking food is exposed is by directly cooling or heating the fire within the fire pit itself. A number of devices have been constructed in attempts to overcome this major disadvantage of most barbecue devices. U.S. Pat. No. 2,968,301 discloses an apparatus wherein the fire pit may be raised or lowered utilizing a screw and gear mechanism. Thus, the heat at the grill within the apparatus may be adjusted. Unfortunately, this particular mechanism is very complex and costly to manufacture.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,622,945 discloses a simple device utilized for raising and lowering the grill. In this instance, a single chain wrapped around a rotatable rod is used, and a single vertical arm is used to raise and lower the grill with a gear and stop arrangement provided to maintain the grill at a selected height after it has been raised or lowered. Thus, the height of the grill is limited to certain predetermined locations based on the gear and stop arrangement and may not be fine tuned or finely adjusted depending on the heat being generated from the fire pit.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,462,306 and No. 4,541,406 disclose outdoor barbecue grills having a grill plate which may raised or lowered by the turning of a rod. In these references, a double chain or dual screw-type mechanism is used to raise and lower the grill, one located at each end of the grill proximate the end supports. Ratchet-type of arrangements are utilized by these references to maintain the grill in a desired location, thereby limiting the positioning of the grill to predetermined specific levels based on the ratchet arrangement. Finally, U.S. Pat. No. 4,344,516 discloses a portable grill device which utilizes a dual vertical arm arrangement for raising and lowering the grill. A pair of holding chains are utilized and are connected to a rotatable rod, and the grill is maintained in this position by a gear and tooth arrangement as described above.
Thus, there remains a need for an outdoor barbecue device wherein the grill is readily raised or lowered relative to the fire pit in order to adjust the heat reaching the food on the grill and whereby the grill may be maintained at any desired position along the raising or lowering mechanism in order to provide fine heat adjustment for the food on the grill as well as to remove cooking heat almost entirely on an immediate basis.